This is an interesting and entertaining subject to me. If there is one thing I think everyone can agree on, it is that there is no universally agreeable definition of "original."
To the specific point, I would say that anything that arises logically from the work product of the same writer is still "original."
This reminds me of another, somewhat similar subject, the debate about how many different plots exist in the world. (There are positions ranging from 3 to 36 that I have read.) I believe the answer is 6 (rags to riches, riches to rags, Icarus, Oedipus, Cinderella, man in a hole). Kurt Vonnegut spent his adult life pondering this subject (starting with a rejected master's thesis at the University of Chicago). At the link is part of a very entertaining lecture he did on the subject. |
